Thursday, January 2, 2014

Dr. Shortz's Brand Name: Puz-L-Boy

The word "wizard" has the peculiar property that its letters can be
grouped in pairs — A and Z, D and W, and I and R — that are opposite
each other in the alphabet. That is, A and Z are at opposite ends of the
alphabet, D and W are four letters in from their respective ends, and I
and R are nine letters in from their respective ends. Can you name a
well-known brand name in six letters that has this same property?

We would never have gotten this if Ross hadn't written a short bit of code to find all six letter "words" using the necessary pairs. The answer is:

Our tie-break rule: In the event
that a single round number is announced with a qualifier such as
"about" or "around" (e.g., "We received around 1,200 entries."), AND two
separate people picked the ranges of numbers just before and just after
that round number, the prize will be
awarded to whichever
entrant had not already won
a prize, or in the event that
both entrants had won a
prize already or neither had,
then to the earlier of the
two entries on the
famous judicial principle of
"First Come First Serve,"
(or in technical legal jargon,
"You Snooze, You Lose"). As of July 2012, this rule is officially no longer obsolete (and also I still just like having fine print).